by Sam Ryder
I walked forward until her back pressed against one of the hut walls. She moved her lips back and forth, tasting the sides and bottom of my mouth, dipping lower to kiss my neck as her dark, silky hair brushed against my jaw.
My hips had her pinned to the wall, so I managed to free my hands enough to lift and untie the top part of her two-piece loin-bikini, the leathery fabric tumbling away and allowing her voluptuous breasts to spill out. I dropped my hand beneath her once more and lifted her higher, so I could kiss her chest, licking at her large nipples faster and faster, letting my mind spiral away from all the memories of the last couple days. Giving myself into the pleasure as she ground her midsection against my abdomen.
She was breathing heavily now, pressing her breasts hard into my mouth, her arms twined around my neck. I switched back and forth rapidly between her two sides, relishing the soft sighs of pleasure that emerged from her throat. “Oh,” she said. Louder: “Oh!” I didn’t stop, loving every sound she made, which only spurred me on.
She arched her back even more, forcing her breasts into me even more, and my hands ripped off her bottoms and mine in one quick motion—the benefit of loincloths. One of her hands dropped immediately to grab my penis, stroking it slightly and then maneuvering it inside her. She began to thrust, slow, purposeful movements with a quick jerk at the end. I mimicked her motion, staying perfectly in sync, still devouring her chest as she continued to let out her Ohs, which now include the occasional obscenity. “Oh. Oh fuck. Oh. Fuck me. Fuck me!”
I wasn’t in any position to disobey, so I moved against her again and again, feeling the blood swarm to my extremities, providing a rush of pleasure that grew and grew and grew until Uva let out a final, “OH!” as I spilled into her, both our pelvises mashed against each other’s, holding that final, climactic thrust.
And then releasing. My legs felt weak and I toppled over with her on top of me.
She collapsed, our bodies flush against each other, our skin moist with sweat.
Maybe Minertha had had the right idea after Dravon’s death.
~~~
I didn’t leave that hut for two days.
Uva was kind enough to bring food and water into between…sessions.
She even fought in two Blacks while I slept. I slept right through both Blacks. For the first time in a long time, I had no desire to fight in those Blacks. I didn’t want to risk getting myself killed before my big mission to find Vrill—I mean, the dragon. When Uva returned, sweaty and tired but uninjured, I didn’t ask about what happened and she didn’t volunteer the information. She just laid down beside me and went to sleep. After a few hours of rest, we enjoyed each other repeatedly, keeping our bodies active and our minds numb to any other feeling but pleasure.
The morning after the second Black, we were just finishing when Beat appeared in the doorway. She’d tried the same once before, but I’d told her to go away and she’d listened.
“Ever heard of privacy?” Uva said, covering her nakedness with her hands and fumbling for her loin-bikini.
“Ever heard of get-the-fuck-out?” Beat said.
Apparently Uva had, because she left without another word, though she did give Beat a death stare on the way out.
“I’m not in the mood,” I said, replacing my own loincloth, refusing to meet Beat’s eyes.
“Good,” Beat said. “Because neither am I.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but then I learned the hard way when she stalked forward and kicked me in the face. And let me tell you, Level 2 Beat could hit as hard as anyone I’d ever seen. Which meant Level 3 Beat could hit like a rocket train speeding down the track.
Despite being in a kneeling position, I lifted fully off the ground, doing a half-flip and landing on my face and chest. “Ur?” I said, blood trickling from the corner of my mouth. It hurt like hell, but this Leveled-up body of mine knew how to take big hits without staying down.
Jaw throbbing, I did a pushup to get myself back up, which left my stomach wide open for another kick. It smacked the air out of me and I rolled over onto my back. Beat wasn’t done. “Get up,” she said.
“I don’t want…to go…to school today…Mommy,” I said, trying to recover my breath.
Evidently, Beat didn’t find it very funny. She grabbed me under the arms and hauled me to my feet, holding me steady with one hand, like a boxer slowing the swing of a punching bag just before…
She hit me in the face with a short, sharp rabbit punch. It was intended to hurt—which it did—without knocking me over again—which it didn’t. While she pummeled me, she started to talk, to tell the story I hadn’t given her a chance to tell the other day when we’d last spoken.
“Munzy chose to fight,” she said. “And she didn’t go down easily.”
She followed the previous hit with another, then another. The vision in one of my eyes was starting to go as the skin around it swelled. My cheeks were warm and I could feel the ooze of blood from my mouth and nose. But none of that mattered now, my entire focus on her next words.
“We were attacked by supersized vostra.” I could hear the tension in her voice at saying the name of what was probably the most horrifying of all the horrifying monsters on this planet. They lived in the ground, using bodies covered in a dozen mouths filled with razor-sharp teeth to eat their way through the earth, attacking from below one’s feet. The regular-sized ones were scary enough, so I couldn’t even imagine what facing giant ones would be like. “Munzy killed five of them,” she said. “Five of seven. She was a badass fucking Warrior.”
The next shot she took was another one to my gut, doubling me over. She reached out and lifted my chin, forcing me to look at her with the one eye I could still see out of. “If not for her, we would’ve lost half our force. So yes, Sam Ryder, you inspired her to be brave, to fight the forces of evil. What you said to her might’ve resulted in her death. But you saved the rest of us, just as Munzy did.”
With that said, her final blow was a knee to the face, leaving me feeling dizzy and seeing stars. My legs crumpled but before I could go down, she caught me and drew me to her. It was the strangest, most tender thing I’d ever experienced.
She hugged me.
My face felt like I’d been making out with a brick wall, and yet my heart felt full of something more real than anything else I’d experienced on this monster-plagued rock.
Friendship.
“Thanks,” I managed to say, tasting copper and sweat on Beat’s skin. “I’m lucky to have someone to beat the shit out of me when I need it.”
I felt Beat’s smile form against my ear. “I’m lucky to have someone who appreciates it when I beat the shit out of them.”
“Eve’s dead,” I said, speaking those words for the first time since I watched Airiel try, and fail, to save her.
“I know,” Beat said. “I know.” She paused, inspecting the skin around my neck, shoulder and chest. “It’s getting worse—where the siren bit you.”
“I know,” I said. More and more veins were visible now, like the white branches of a tree stripped of its bark.
“What do the Three say about it?”
I shrugged. “I haven’t exactly asked them.”
“You should.”
“Later. I have to go on this mission,” I said. I waited for her to argue, but she remained silent, so I added, “Alone.”
“I know,” she repeated. “I’ll hold down the ship while you’re gone. And keep Lace from eating any of the Warriors.”
“Someone has to,” I joked back. It felt like we were slowly finding our rhythm again, the rhythm I’d screwed up for a while.
“The Three asked me to give this to you,” she said, releasing me from her bear hug to withdraw something from her loin-bikini top. A necklace made of small chain links. At the end was a diamond-shaped red crystal. It was beautiful, but there was something weird about it.
The red crystal wasn’t dangling. It was lifting and pulling on the rest of the chain. Even within
the four walls and roof of the hut, I had a good enough sense of direction to know exactly where—what—it was pulling toward:
Annakor.
TEN
SMALL THINGS
The amulet the goddesses had given me was both a gift and a tool. It was a gift in that it was clearly a priceless gemstone, more valuable than anything I’d seen in my entire life. Its crimson surface was free of blemish, and at its core was a glowing fireball.
It was a tool because it was connected to its last bearer. And its last bearer was Vrill.
“It’s trying to get back to her,” I said, after Beat had explained all this to me. “It’s like a compass with Vrill as its true north.”
Beat said, “A GPS would be better, but hey, a magical goddess-blessed amulet works too. When are you planning on leaving?” She said the last part with a high-pitched note at the end. I understood. I hated this part too. Not knowing whether we’d see each other again. But I couldn’t not go. It wasn’t because the Three had given me the mission; rather, because I’d been heading on this course ever since the moment I watched helplessly as Vrill was dragged into the mirror by her doppelganger. I’d put the well-being of the Three and the other Warriors above her for too long. She was my friend. She had saved me in the very beginning, taught me the ropes so to speak. Hell, she’d even tried to rescue me from the Three when I wasn’t looking to be rescued.
And. And, she’d been there to accompany me to Annakor for the first time, fought by my side for this world that was beginning to mean something to me.
I had to save her. Not for my own redemption, although there was that.
For her. I was going to do this for her, and for her alone.
“Helloooo,” Beat called, waving a hand in front of my spaced-out eyes.
“Sorry,” I said. “I was thinking.”
“Dangerous business, that,” she said. “Try not to blow a fuse or you’ll end up a Seeker vegetable. I could practically see steam coming out of your bumhole.”
“That was just gas,” I said.
“I thought I smelled something other than sex.”
“Very funny. I’ll have you know, Uva isn’t so bad once you get to know her.”
“Getting to know her? Is that what it’s called these days? I always thought it was just called fucking. Huh. That explains a lot.”
“Try to be nice while I’m gone, would ya?”
“I’ll think about it. She’s a badass Warrior, so that helps. Unfortunately Lace already added her to her crew. Maybe you could put in a good word to get her to switch?”
I held up my arms. “Sorry, no can do. I’m not getting involved in any Protector politics.”
“Thanks a lot, pal. Good to know I’ve got you in my corner.” Beat punched me in the shoulder and though it was a solid hit and hurt quite a lot, it felt good, like old times. Like friendship.
“Hey,” I asked. “I think we’ve got to do something to slow down the supersized monsters. We’re hemorrhaging Warriors. It’s not sustainable.”
“No kidding, really?” Beat said.
I blinked. Of course she was already thinking about building defenses. We’d talked about it often enough. “What have you done so far?” I asked.
“We don’t have the numbers or energy to gather wood from Ursula’s Wood. Digging pits would take a lot out of us too. So we’re working on the simplest solution for now. Collecting as much demon blood as we can get.”
I nodded. “I like it.” We’d discussed using the demon’s blood to create a wall of fire many times. Use it as a weapon rather than just to create light during the Black. “How much have you got?”
She shrugged. “A few buckets so far. After each Black we harvest what we can.”
It was a great start, but a helluva lot more blood would be required to create a wall of fire long and wide enough to take out a bunch of giant monsters. “Okay,” I said, trying to think of anything else to say.
Beat filled the gap in the conversation. “Bring Vrill back alive, okay? I don’t want to see you go on another loony sex misadventure with Uva.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said, forcing a smile to my lips. It was fake, however, because all I could picture was Eve’s lifeless body lying prone as the Three tried, and failed, to save her.
~~~
“Hey,” I said, spotting Uva. She was training with Lace and her crew, looking hot as hell as she twirled a three-pronged blade between her fingers. I noticed the pots of demon’s blood Beat had mentioned, sitting off to one side. I tried to picture Beat slowly walking backwards, pouring the blood along the ground. She could probably cover an area of about a hundred yards with what she had so far, but only in a thin line. The wall of fire would need to be broader, which meant she’d only be able to cover twenty to thirty yards with the current supply. Still, it was awesome to know we were being more proactive these days. When I returned from my mission, I promised myself to help coordinate more defenses, traps and weapons, anything to hold off the enemy.
“No fraternizing during training,” Lace said, baring her fangs at me. Her Wolverine claws extended from her fists halfway, long enough to rip me to shreds. It was good that she was gaining control over her newly Leveled-up body, but that wasn’t particularly comforting right now.
“Please,” I said. “It’ll just take a sec.”
She licked her chops, as if weighing whether I would taste better now or later. Finally, she said, “Fine. But make it quick. I’ve got to whip these newbs into shape before the next Black.”
“Thanks.” I turned to Uva, but she spoke before I could get a word out.
“I get it,” she said. “We had some fun. I wasn’t looking for anything serious either.”
“I was going to say thank you.”
“For what?”
“For distracting me. For giving my mind a break. I know it wasn’t a healthy way of dealing with grief—at least that’s what the psychobabblers on Earth would tell you—but fuck it, sometimes you just need a break from all the bad shit.”
“So that’s what I was—a way of dealing with grief?”
Shit. I’d said the wrong thing—as usual. “That’s not what I meant. You are highly attractive and not just because of your transformed body. You have a quick tongue. I like that.”
“I was just messing with you, but thanks for saying that. You’re not so bad yourself.” With that, she stepped forward, her body humming with energy and slick with sweat. She lifted onto her tiptoes and kissed me, her tongue flashing out quickly.
She pulled back, a sly smile crossing her lips. “Hurry back from your important mission,” she said.
“I’ll do my best,” I promised, leaning in for another kiss.
“No fraternizing during training!” Lace’s voice rang out.
~~~
I gripped the amulet in my fist as I passed through the ward shield with a suck-pop! The gem was such a small thing but held such great possibility. The possibility to find my friend. The possibility to save her the way she’d saved me. Inside my closed hand I could feel the jewel pulsing and juddering, like a caged heart trying to break free.
For a second I could almost believe it was Vrill’s heart and if I could only return it to her I could bring her back and sever her connection to the Morgoss.
I cast that thought aside because that wasn’t the way it worked. And yet that didn’t mean there wasn’t another way. There had to be. This world had rules. Sometimes the Morgoss found ways to break them, but those were just loopholes. The rules still existed. For every spell there needed to be a counterspell, a way to reverse the effects.
If I could find Vrill and kill the dragon, maybe I could find a way. Or maybe the dragon was the key to everything. If I took it out of the equation, perhaps that would be enough to set things right again.
Past the ward shields, the gritty flatlands stretched all the way to the mountains, behind which I knew the Morgoss’ stronghold sat dark and foreboding, nestled between the shoulder of two
of the tallest peaks. After two trips into the fortress, I had no desire to make a third. But if Vrill was in there, I would attempt to infiltrate the black castle a hundred times if necessary.
I released the amulet and watched in awe as it dropped only partway before rising to hover in front of my mouth, stretching the chain-link necklace taut, tugging against the back of my neck.
I stopped, frowning. When I’d first seen the amulet do its trick, I’d judged the direction to be vaguely leading toward Annakor. Which made sense. It was the direction Vrill and the dragon had flown from whenever they’d attacked the ward shields. Then again, they hadn’t been seen in days, a fact I was still trying to make sense of. Why would the Morgoss withhold their most powerful weapon? It was unlike them to give us any kind of a reprieve, especially when they held the advantage of numbers. There were only three possible explanations I could think of:
1. Vrill and/or the dragon were injured and unable to walk/fly. I tried not to think about this one too much.
2. Vrill had managed to sever her slave bond to the Morgoss and was on the lam. Unlikely, considering how powerful the Morgoss were.
3. She’d been sent elsewhere.
That third possibility was one I hadn’t really considered before, because I always assumed destroying the ward shields and getting to the Three was the Morgoss’ number one objective. Maybe it is, I thought. But that doesn’t mean they won’t use other methods to achieve it.
While I puzzled over that thought, I stared at the base of the diamond-shaped crystal trying to pull itself from the necklace. Yes, it was aimed in the general direction of Annakor, but I knew from experience that it wasn’t targeting the dark fortress. Not directly anyway. It was aiming to the side of it.
My instincts told me Vrill was somewhere far more distant, which meant my journey was going to be a long one.
Gripping my hammer in one hand, I settled into a steady stride for twenty or so paces, easing up to a jog and then a run, a pace I could maintain for many miles in my Seeker’s body.
My goal, as always for this type of a mission, was to cover as much ground before the Black as possible. It felt good, running, exerting myself. On Earth I’d never been much of an exerciser, unless you counted all the exercise my thumbs got playing A-Civ. Now I understood why I always saw those people getting up at the buttcrack of dawn to run before work. The runner’s high was a real thing.